Dodger Move to Coliseum Area Proposed

The National Football League and the Fox Group, which owns the Dodgers, have held preliminary talks about the baseball team leaving Chavez Ravine to build a new baseball stadium alongside a renovated Memorial Coliseum--a dramatic twist in the ongoing debate over how to bring professional football back to the city.

If approved, the proposal would centralize Los Angeles’ sports and entertainment venues, clustering homes for its major sports teams in state-of-the art stadiums near downtown.

“It’s a different vision--a Dodger Stadium solution, NFL solution, a unique sports complex in the entertainment capital of the world,” said a source familiar with the discussions between Fox and the NFL.

The recent NFL-Fox discussions are still in a very early stage, but they already have generated both enthusiasm and ridicule. They have encouraged football officials, who have been wary of returning to the Coliseum area and who have given Los Angeles a Sept. 15 deadline for presenting an acceptable stadium plan in exchange for an expansion team that would begin play in 2002.

At the same time, the proposal has stirred considerable skepticism among some officials who have been briefed about it. Among the questions being asked is whether the baseball-football complex would swamp other Exposition Park tenants--including the popular science center--essentially closing them for more than 100 days a year by filling the available parking.

Some skeptics also question whether Fox will follow through on the proposal, since it would face huge roadblocks in winning approval for an Exposition Park stadium and would be left with the difficult problem of disposing of its land in Chavez Ravine, where the Dodgers have played since 1962.

“This has been talked about for a long time,” said one local observer involved in the discussions over bringing a football team to Los Angeles. “It just doesn’t make sense. It never did, and I don’t see how it will now.”

The NFL declined comment, and Fox officials could not be reached.

NFL officials were in town last week and briefed a number of local leaders on the discussions with Fox. Among those who were told of the idea were Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley, Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, county supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky, and prospective football team owners Eli Broad and Ed Roski.

Reaction Runs the Gamut

The idea piqued the interest of some, and even skeptics said they were struck by the bold plan and its potential to radically alter the landscape at Exposition Park. But many also worried about its potential to distract from the football negotiations, and some argued that the idea, while interesting, requires considerable work to be developed.

“This is a preliminary exploration of a very powerful concept,” said Ridley-Thomas, who represents the area around the Coliseum and has led the campaign to bring a football team there. “Over the next several weeks, a lot of work will be done to assess its potential. . . . What this also is is a significant affirmation of Exposition Park. It’s quickly becoming the most exciting urban park in America.”

When a similar proposal to bring the Dodgers to Exposition Park was floated almost a year ago, Fox showed no interest, but sources say the corporation’s increasing realization of how difficult it will be to win neighborhood and political support for construction of a new Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine led to renewed discussions with the NFL.

The NFL has indicated a willingness to begin work on such a project, sources said, although it is concerned that such a complicated deal would take it beyond its own Sept. 15 deadline. The NFL, however, has yet to get the go-ahead from Fox.

In fact, some officials believe Fox may be encouraging the idea to strengthen its bargaining position in the event that it returns to the city for permission to build a new stadium in Chavez Ravine.

“What does Fox have to lose by keeping this idea around?” one City Hall insider asked.

Fox announced plans for a $200-million Dodger Stadium renovation last year, but then backtracked, saying it would make some minimal changes in time for the 2000 season, which led to speculation that Fox would seek a new stadium soon.

At last month’s NFL owners meetings in Phoenix, Chase Carey, chairman and chief executive of Fox TV, did not discount the idea of the Dodgers leaving Chavez Ravine for a new stadium site, but said there were no plans to do so. Dodger representatives, however, visited City Hall a few months ago to make it clear that they will not compete with the Coliseum to build a football stadium at Chavez Ravine.

Under the proposal discussed with local officials in recent days, the new baseball stadium would be located on the current site of the antiquated Sports Arena. Although a tight fit, that would bring Los Angeles a football team and provide the Dodgers with a new home without having to purchase land for a stadium. Separate stadiums would also skirt any conflicts of interest between the NFL and Fox, which televises the league’s games.

It would also bring sports activity to the Exposition Park area for almost 100 days of the year, supporting the Figueroa Corridor concept of restaurants and shops leading to the Staples Center, which will draw crowds more than 200 nights a year.

At the same time, the addition of baseball to Exposition Park would create a host of problems, most of them relating to parking. The existing football stadium proposal tests the area’s parking capacity and relies, in part, on borrowing space from USC on game days.

Double the Trouble

Pro football, however, is limited to fewer than a dozen days a year. Baseball teams play 81 home games, and the influx of so many visitors to the Exposition Park area would overwhelm USC and the museums on the park grounds. As a result, even supporters of the notion acknowledge that major parking improvements would be required.

Moreover, there is the question of whether the government would underwrite some of the costs of the project.

Under the proposal, Fox and the NFL would privately finance separate baseball and football stadiums on the Exposition Park site, while benefiting immensely from infrastructure improvements in the area, such as new freeway offramps.

But the league and Fox also would turn to the public sector for help in building a new parking structure, sources said. In the past, the local government has demonstrated considerable resistance to any expenditure of public funds to help sports franchises.

For the last six months there has been increased talk of Fox swapping Chavez Ravine for another piece of land in the Los Angeles area that would allow for the construction of a new stadium.

Fox might also be inclined to seek more attractive zoning changes to Chavez Ravine before selling the land in an effort to recoup a return on its $311-million investment to buy the Dodgers and pay for the construction of a new stadium. That, however, could generate a buzz-saw of controversy at City Hall.

If Fox were to try to convert Chavez Ravine into housing, some council members might be inclined to favor such a move. But if the company were to seek a more controversial rezoning, allowing the land to be used for a shopping center or other commercial venture, for instance, council members might resist, complicating the deal’s prospects.